Africa

Liberia

Diplomats and documentaries

PIRATED Hollywood blockbusters and Nigerian melodramas are usually the big sellers for Monrovia’s band of roving DVD-hawkers. But this week discerning customers in Liberia’s capital are on the lookout for “The Ambassador”, a rather peculiar Danish documentary. The country’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, will be hoping it never appears.

The film follows journalist Mads Brügger on his surreal adventures posing as a corrupt Liberian diplomat in the Central African Republic, where he sets about opening a match factory for a group of pygmies. This absurd enterprise is a cover for his main scheme: to smuggle diamonds out of the country.

What has sent the Liberian press into a frenzy is that the charlatan depicted handing out stuffed “envelopes of happiness”, dancing with inebriated pygmies, and visiting militia-run diamond mines, was in fact an official diplomatic representative of Liberia. A Dutch “diplomatic broker”, Liberia's top corporate lawyer (who is also chairman of the ruling Unity Party), and around $185,000, facilitated Mr Brügger’s appointment as Liberian Honorary Consul and Ambassador-at-Large. His credentials were signed by President Johnson Sirleaf herself.

Liberia’s government, which has been trying to coax back investors while maintaining donor support, is not amused. The ministry of information expressed “grave consternation”, and promised to sue the “admitted fraudster”. Mrs Johnson Sirleaf vowed to seek extradition, although it is unclear what the charges would be.

Mr Brügger probably needn't lose any sleep. His most serious crime appears to have been to make the government look silly. But the episode is an interesting illustration of a country stuck between a dark past and a bright future.

A former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, who was convicted of war crimes at the Special Court for Sierra Leone at The Hague in April, used to dish out diplomatic passports to a motley assortment of gun-runners, and timber- and diamond-racketeers. In the 1990s foreign-service officials auctioned off whole embassies in foreign capitals. In prior years, state plunder was more methodical: the administration of William Tolbert, Liberia’s president from 1971 to 1980, kept records of every weird and wonderful official title it sold.

But Liberia is trying to escape its past. Many of those, like Mrs Johnson Sirleaf, who were prominent figures in the old Liberia, are now trying to convince the world it no longer exists. What Mr Brügger’s film shows is what everyone in Liberia already knows: the roots of the old ways exist everywhere; the challenge is keeping them at bay.

President Johnson Sirleaf’s relative success in doing so has led some in the international press to dub her “The Iron Lady”. Actually, she is the arch compromiser, seeking to balance the often competing interests of the Liberians who vote for her, the international community that funds her, and the traditional elites who have long controlled Liberian politics. This is proving increasingly difficult. Her critics argue that despite her liberal rhetoric, she has held no public officials to account, refuses to endorse gay rights or abolish the death penalty, and keeps her sons in senior positions in the country’s National Oil Company, Central Bank, and National Security Agency.

Challenges clearly lie ahead, but the furore over “The Ambassador” does offer cause for cheer. Even with his limitless funds, Mr Brügger endures a tortuous struggle to get his hands on diplomatic credentials. The comically corrupt Central African Republic depicted seems a world away from the country of his new passport. What’s more, a free press has lampooned senior Liberian politicians for their involvement in the farce. For Liberia, this is not a disaster, it’s progress.

The Ambassador revels in dehumanizing africans and getting cheap laughs for it. Whale-scene, anyone?
The saddest part isn't that critics miss the movies obvious racism but that they never acknowledge the true structure of corruption; which, of course, is supply and demand. The wilful neglect to show where the money comes from that drives the diamond trade and spurs the corruption is nothing less than shameful.
White privilege as simply not being able to see the plot from any of the african participants perspective. Let's call it white blindness.( I hear the trolls coming)
This blindness, to where the money and demand comes from that destabilizes and distorts nascent democracies all over the world, underpins the western narrative that the developing world somehow deserves to be poor, wartorn and corrupt because "they did it to themselves/ it's in their culture". Brögger and his ilk that propagate this myth under tha flag of "art" should be called out and roundly shamed for it in any civilized company.
Unfortunately they won't. They are and will be feted as "edgy", brave, non-pc speakers of truth. The predominantly white artworld loves nothing better than to indulge in racist, dehumanizing acts under the guise of art and provocation. Brögger won't lack funds for his next project that's one thing for sure.
If the colour question and the state of Denmark(Bröggers home country) interests you in the slightest please give this a shot: http://vimeo.com/19472742

As if gay rights and the death penalty have anything to do with good governance. Don't impose your perverted liberal Western ideas on folks who reject them. Lest the image of Saudis and Africans come to mind, think Texas (pro-death penalty) and 45 or U.S. states that are anti-gay marriage.

Good governance does include protecting the rights of minority groups who may be persecuted. And, yes, there is enough corruption to go around and include Texas and other states and countries. The efforts of the filmmaker and article simply call attention to a particular location which has been particularly brutally oppressive in the recent past.

He also created a documentary called "the Red Chapel" in English in which he travels to North Korea with two Danish Koreans, one which is a spastic and one which is a komedian. They are there pretending to be a theater group that has been allowed in to do a show in the honor of North Korea.

One thing I like about Mads Brügger is that his goal is not to change the world or show us how bad everything is. He doesn't even try to morally justify his actions. His documentary are basically the darkest form of humor you can get.

Let me make it very clear to anyone. I did NOT sell anything and absolutely NOT a diplomatic passport or status. How could I? Brugger printed himself a fake diplomatic passport and the Liberian Government officially appointed him after thorough research by the National Security Agencies in Liberia, CAR and by Europol.

Isn't the marketing of everything with a market the very essence of liberal economics?

Countries with nothing to sell but tokens of sovereignty will do just that.

People get in a huff about comedy diplomatic appointments - but how is Liberia's real industry, flags of convenience, any different? Except that the whole worldwide shipping industry, or rather its shareholders, is interested in keeping the fraud going. Serious business here, please do not disrupt: crews could get better conditions! marine safety and environment could be improved! God forbid! Better to squeal about "Ambassador".

> "In the USA individuals who support running candidates for presidency receive diplomatic positions abroad after their candidate wins. They pay upfront."

This is very interesting and should be the headline of an entire new documentary. Maybe you should speak out against this rotten tradition instead of thinking that it justifies your own actions. As a an old proverb goes, A thief believes that everybody steals. But actually, as you can see from the movie and would know by asking most common people, diplomacy should not be bought, but should be earned through politics and transparency. I'm amazed at how you got this wrong.

You are shooting the messenger. There may be racism in Denmark, as with any other country in the world. But Mr. Brügger certainly aint one, and the movie has nothing to do with cheap laughs, it's portraying the lack of moral in both ends of the skin color scale.

Somehow you've missed all the white guys selling diplomatic passports.. they are very well-represented, and Brügger himself assumes a very sarcastic character as a corrupt money-grabbing white guy.

@Willem Tijssen, I found it rather interesting how Lars von Trier is able to stir up a big scandal in the media -- just for the sake of doing so. Anyone who knows his movies, knows that he plays with just about any norm. For the sake of being controversial, either to bring attention to himself or to be the center of a crazy debate. It has nothing to do with his believes. Regarding the Brügger sketch: Either you take it seriously, as a piece of weird art, and you ponder the role of media and obedience or whatever... or you can just disregard the whole thing as crazy satire. It certainly has nothing to do with his believes.
What you're doing looks like another case of shooting the messenger. Quite simply, Brügger just made a film and used real-life people to illustrate how things work. He may have depicted you wrongly, but then you can object to that rather than pulling the whole debate down into Godwin's law.
Any reasonable discussion of a documentary should be about what we see on the screen, and not some conspiracy about the director.

He falsely accuses everybody of corruption and bribery, and insulted the Head of State, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and others while being the only person in the plot who had evil intentions of bribery and corruption. When applying for a position as Honorary Consul for Liberia and being accepted and appointed, Brügger automatically became the Liberian nationality. For that reason the Liberian Government can legitimate demand the Danish Government to extradite Brygger Cortzen to face justice in Liberia. So I think Mr. Brygger will probably not sleep too well the coming time.

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that Denmark will even consider extraditing one of its citizens to Liberia to stand trial. In general, Denmark refuses extradition to most countries outside the EU, including India, which created a scandal and a diplomatic cold-war recently when Denmark refused to extradite a convicted gun-runner who had dropped weapons to rebels and terrorists to India. And if India with their considerable diplomatic clout cannot force an extradition for something as serious as gun-running, there is no chance for Liberia at all. And furthermore, the Danish Foreign Ministry has yet to receive any official request from the Liberian government. It seems more like tame sabre-rattling on the part of the Liberian government.

I doubt that Denmark will extradite him. Although it is posible for a Danish citizen to obtain another citizenship, Denmark does not aknowledge dual citizenship. Therefore he can only be a Danish citizen in the eyes of the Danish state unless he rejects his Danish citizenship.
In the current situation I do not think that Mads Brügger will reject his citizenship, neither do I believe that Denmark will extradite one of its citizens for a trial in Liberia.

You actually start by being polite so I´ll try to give an honest answer. The line you refer to is simply constructed wrong. Eng isn't my first language. So much for composition. The intent was to say that white privilige prevents parts of the art world from seeing systemic dehumanizing behaviour as what it is;racism.
Then you go a little bonkers. Calling out white privilege usually does that though:)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege
Read up on the concept and maybe you will understand that calling out the top dog in an uneven powerstructure isn´t the same as systemic dehumanizing of the folks on the other end of said powerstructure. You are basically arguing that if oppression is felt be the ones at the bottom; for those people to raise concerns about the dominant class/race/genders behaviour, a behaviour that is peculiar to that "higher" strata of society, is the same as the racism/oppression itself.
You do realize how stupid/evil that sounds?